The fauxtography and clearly-faked stories (reported by AP and others) about the alleged Israeli air strikes on ambulances in Lebanon were so absurd that no comment seemed necessary. At the time, nothing needed to be added to the great work by Zombietime, LittleGreenFootballs and Powerline, among others. But the ambulance story lingers and now there's even some effort to rehabilitate the reports. It wouldn't be important but for the new UN committee that's looking into Israeli - not Hizballah - "war crimes" in Lebanon, and the efforts in several EU nations to bring war crimes charges against Israeli pols. It's time to quash this ambulance business once and for all.

The one bunch of experts we haven't heard from is the fighter jocks, guys who have made their living by killing people and breaking things in the air and on the ground with missiles, bombs and guns. I sent an e-mail to some of my fly-guy pals, asking for their take on what would be left after - as AP reported - the vehicles were hit with air-to-ground missiles. The responses - which ranged from the hilariously profane to "they gotta be kidding" -- included the following. (Remember, these guys were all engineers before they became fliers, so their vocabularies are abnormal. Here are their responses, without translation from pilot-speak):

From a retired Navy captain:

They could have used a rocket or missile like a Maverick but the warhead would have ripped the ambulance apart and scattered the parts all over a football field. Bottom line for thinking about the damage from things dropped off a jet: Think of the impact of a baseball thrown by a good fast ball pitcher.... about 95 mph.... now make that a bowling ball..... OK.... now make it a 500-pound hunk of steel and have it hit an ambulance dead center on the roof where the exhaust/ventilation hole is. That would be impressive huh?? OK, NOW for the reality.... think about the energy transferred into the vehicle and its unlucky inhabitants from something that weighs 500 pounds and traveling at about Mach 1 which is about the terminal velocity of a bomb dropped from about 15,000-20,000 feet by a fast mover..... oh.... and it's about 6 foot long so squeezing through that little vent hole would be a tough shot even for a Naval Aviator!!

From a retired Air Force colonel:

Well, one would have to see the specific ambulances. A proximate hit (i.e, the missile impacted/exploded close to the vehicle as opposed to a direct hit, would cause different levels of destruction. Some do miss, you know. The Pk is not always 1. Also, was it a missile, or a bomb? There are also area weapons, like ones that airburst above the vehicles and set loose a torrent of shrapnel. These would not necessarily destroy the vehicle, but would really shred it up. Also, are there combustion products? Punctured fuel tanks usually burn and carbonize a lot of the car and melt a lot of the plastics. Some of these pictures reveal obvious fictions. For example, one vehicle had a big hole in the center of the roof (where identical vehicles nearby had a cooling unit installed) and numerous smaller holes in the roof with little damage to the vehicle interior. This one was obviously Ratheresque - the smaller holes all had considerable areolar oxidation (rust) around them just hours after the alleged attack. Must be the salt air. This is what happens when journalism majors, who can't even jump start their cars, control the information flow.

Another retired Air Force colonel:

If an ambulance were hit by anything at all like an AGM-65 Maverick, there would be nothing left. Even antique 2.75" AAFR Rockets would make a total mess of it. Hell, one 20mm HEI cannon shell would do a number on it.

And another former Navy fighter pilot:

As to the lethality of such equipment, suffice it to say, little within a 100 ft. CEP would be recognizable. About the only thing that would survive such a weapon's destructive power would be an anvil....if you could find it.

From a former Navy attack helo driver, who used to operate with the SEALs:

It is possible that the air to ground missile came from an attack helicopter. The smallest such missile would be a 2.5" folding fin aerial rocket with a 10 lb (or possibly 17 lb) high explosive warhead. My experience is that such a force is highly detrimental to an enemy bunker. And...even if the warhead were a white phosphorous (WP---Willy Pete) marking round it is doubtful that anyone would survive (plus there would be a whole lot of white smoke).

My considered opinion is that they "speak with forked tongue."

If those ambulances had been hit with any air-launched missile or air-delivered bomb, they'd be scattered pieces of smoking debris. No one inside would have survived to parade for the television cameras. Period, end of story.